


from meltdown to shutdown

by melletsbix



Category: troye sivan - Fandom
Genre: Autism, M/M, Meltdown, Non-Verbal, angsty, but also fluffy, idek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 02:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12738789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melletsbix/pseuds/melletsbix
Summary: After a meltdown in science, Troye finds himself non-verbal, and laying in Jacob’s arms.





	from meltdown to shutdown

The longer Troye sat in the science classroom, the more everything hurt.

Just one florescent light over his head was flickering on, off, on-off, on, off-on. When they were on, they were too bright; he wanted to dig his heels deep into his eyelids, and shield himself from the piercing light. And when they were off, the inconsistency in the lights that were on made everything feel off balance. It went on, on, on, off, on. There was no pattern. He couldn't not look up and get frustrated, but the more he looked up the more the light hurt.

And that lesson everyone else was doing a practical experiment. That meant people moving fast around him, bunsen burners hissing, loud laughs and shouts of wonder at whatever they were testing. He didn't get involved with the experiments in his class; he didn't like working with other people because they could never get the patterns of what order to do things in right and that would only result in a breakdown from him, so he just didn't.

Instead, every lesson (including that one) he would sit at the back of the class and stare ahead wishing Jacob was in that class, or he'd read through the study guides.

He could deal with it for the first half an hour. If he shut his eyes he could imagine the lights were on, off, on, off, on, and the flickering was a steady pattern. He could drown out the hissing and laughing and talking and whispering with his hands subtly cupped over his ears. He could distract himself from the sight of the bunsen burners not being on the right flame by rocking back and forth in his seat (it was oddly comforting). He could even forget about just how many people were in such a tiny space by twitching his fingers in different patterns and humming quietly.

But he could not deal with all of that and a mishap in one of the experiments that happened thirty two minutes in. Someone had decided it would be a good idea to hold something over the bunsen burner, and that had resulted in a tall puff of red flames shooting up. The fire was just inches away from licking at the ceiling, but it didn't last long enough. It was just for a second, a loud hiss accompanying the motion.

Of course, along with the brief mishap, people had squealed and screeched in surprise and fear, but that was the last straw in Troye's mind.

His breathing hitched first, and the twitching in his fingers got more aggressive as things seemed to be more there. The lights got even brighter, the chatter sounded like screaming, his clothes felt itchy and confining. The room seemed smaller, and it suddenly felt like there was not enough space for him to exist or escape.

That was the subtle part (only his mum or Jacob would have noticed a difference from his usual stimming), but all of the sensory input his mind was getting started blurring together so it didn't last for long. Confusion over took his mind, and his only mission was to regain control.

Too much was coming in, everything was too much and he wanted it to stop. So he drowned it out.

He rocked forward a little faster, he hummed a little louder, his hand twitching switched to hitting his thighs with heavy palms. He wanted to press his face into something, just to get pressure, but there was nothing around. His stimming wasn't working, and everything was starting to get shaky and off-balance.

"Uh, Sir. Troye's doing the thing." He vaguely heard a student say, and immediately his hands jumped up to press at his ears. If he could just apply enough pressure maybe he could make himself deaf and all the shouts and white noise he could hear would go away.

Someone tried to touch his shoulder, but that really set him off. No one in that class was his friend, so no one knew how to deal with a meltdown like this.

He scrunched his eyes shut as tight as he could and dug the heels of his hands harder into his ears. He pushed the chair back and stood up so he had more space, only to fall to the floor so he could curl up and rock against the wall. He could get pressure from the wall. Much needed, grounding pressure.

He ended up facing away from it, and rocking so his head would hit it every time. He was crying too, not that he noticed, tears forcing their way out of his scrunched up eyes and making its way into his open, groaning mouth. Even the salty taste of his own tears were too much, and he hurried to hit himself in the mouth, as if that would stop his ability to taste.

Who knew how much time had passed when he felt something being pushed into his hands. His instinct was to groan louder, but his hands took the unusually soft object anyway, pressing hard into it and– he heard a crinkle sound in response.

A soft and lovely crinkling sound that he could focus on. He dug his fingers into the object once again, and found the louder crinkle he was rewarded with grounding.

His rocking got less aggressive, he stopped bashing his head against the wall, and slowly things came to a stop.

His tears kept falling, but there were no aggravated groans going with it.

"Shh, baby. There we go." A soft voice was whispering, and he found himself humming in acknowledgement. Jacob was there.

But as he felt himself come down from the adrenalin of his meltdown, everything felt light. Too light, not heavy enough. A high whine left his mouth without permission, and he found himself cracking open his eyes to see a softly-smiling Jacob knelt in front of him.

For some reason he couldn't get the words out that he needed, his body exhausted and mind slow. But, as he tapped a pattern onto the crinkly toy he'd been given, Jacob just knew what he needed somehow. Probably from his previous experience with Troye's meltdowns... But Troye liked to pretend Jacob was just magical and amazing.

"You need your weighted jacket?"

Troye hummed again, and only realised he was still rocking to comfort himself when Jacob carefully slipped his free arm through one of the arms of his weighted fuzzy jacket. He tried to stop to help Jacob, but the motion was just too comforting. He needed it.

"It's okay, it's okay." Jacob was quick to assure him, and made quick work of slipping his other arm through the other arm hole. Immediately he felt like he could focus on things more widely, and dropped the crinkly stim-toy so he could run his fingertips over the fuzzy fabric of the jacket.

He noticed no one but his science teacher remained in after a brief look over the room. But even he kept his distance, settling for smiling encouragingly when he noticed he'd caught Troye's eyes. But Troye let his sight wander to the windows to outside, and saw the entire class huddled up, looking through the window with an air of annoyance about them.

He'd stopped the lesson, of course they were annoyed. He let out a quiet whine again, and lightly hit himself in the chest.

"Don't hit, please, angel." Jacob requested softly.

Successfully he'd gained Troye's attention, as he couldn't help but look at Jacob for a few long seconds.

Wait..

Jacob hadn't been there pre-meltdown, so when had he got here? How and why was he brought here?

Troye tried to ask the questions running through his slow mind, but all he could manage was to open his mouth and squeak promptly. He furrowed his eyebrows lazily, and tried harder, imagining the words forming on his tongue and being let out to the world, but he could only manage a feeble 'w' sound.

Jacob frowned in sympathy.

"Non-verbal?" He guessed, and Troye took a second to nod slowly, and hit his chest again in annoyance.

"No, it's okay. You up for signing, or writing?" He went on, and Troye tried to move his fist away from where it was pushing on the fluffy fabric of his vest-jacket so he could sign the word 'sign', but he found the movement from his chest to midair clumsy. Writing would be a challenge and sign language was far too precise and intricate for him at that moment.

He simply frowned at Jacob again, letting his fist hit his chest once more.

"Don't hit, Tok." Jacob pleaded quietly. He reached into a bag by his side and pulled out another stim-toy for Troye to fidget with.

This one was by far his favourite, it was one of those animal stress toys that, when you squeezed it, would bulge out its eyes. In turn, it always made Troye's eyes light up.

He could put as much pressure on it as he wanted and it still wouldn't break.

"You not want to talk at all?" Jacob guessed finally, and Troye lifted one hand from the stim-toy to flap happily. They didn't need to talk in a well-known language, they had their very own Troye language.

Jacob was fluent in it.

*        *        *

Jacob took Troye home after that, and together they lay underneath Troye's weight blanket on his super soft bed. On the TV, La La Land was playing quietly, and Troye calmed down enough that Jacob could cuddle him close and run a hand through his hair without earning a whine or groan in response.

However, now that Troye's favourite movie was on screen he did have to beware of some excited hand flaps.

"I hope your meltdown didn't take too much outta you. I miss your cute voice already." Jacob said softly, and Troye frowned.

Jacob didn't mean to pressure him into trying to talk, it just made him feel bad. It made him want to talk, but he just.. couldn't.

He hit himself in the chest with an unhappy fist, and Jacob noticed his mistake.

"No, no. I didn't mean it like that. You talk when you're ready. I'll still be here."

Troye hummed, content with the answer.

The one good side of his meltdowns (if they happened at school) was that he got to go home afterward, and that usually meant Jacob did to. It was a weird way to look at it, but oddly it made Troye feel better.

After a meltdown he always felt overwhelmed as well as tired, though. It's like the meltdown was still half-happening, just internally. His thoughts were loud and felt like they were hitting at his skull from inside, trying desperately to get out and be heard, but his mouth was refusing to cooperate.

He felt a little trapped, a prisoner to himself, but he comforted himself with the memory that this was not permanent. It had happened before, and he was mumbling one worded sentences by the end of the night.

"You wanna stim more? You're pretty antsy." Jacob mentioned, but Troye just let out a whine and flapped his hands again.

He let his palms settle on his soft blanket after that, focusing on smoothing down the fur-like covering over and over like he was in a trance. If he focused his energy on one thing, he'd feel grounded.

He wouldn't be able to feel bad at his tendency to go non-verbal, or the fact he wouldn't be comfortable to kiss his own hot boyfriend until the next morning.

*        *        *

Two hours later, and one and half movies later, Troye felt up to signing at least.

'Sorry.' He signed simply after getting Jacob's attention. Jacob looked confused.

"What for?"

'No talking. No kiss.'

Jacob laughed a little bit at that, and gently put two fingers underneath Troye's chin.

He checked that Troye was okay with the contact (the happy stims and subtle rocking said yes) and smiled at the blue eyed boy gently.

"Baby, we've been together for almost a year now. And we've been friends since we were thirteen. I know what comes with dating you and loving you. And I could care less; I love every single part and type of you.

"Including your happy hand flaps and rocking and the adorable humming you don't even notice you're doing half the time. Including the you that has meltdowns and shutdowns, and your stim-toys and chew necklace and weighted blanket and tangle. I love you all the time, alright?"

Troye let a smile take over his face at the words, and nodded.

'I love you.' He signed.

'I love you more than words.' Jacob signed back.

With that, they were back to watching movies with Jacob's hand running through Troye's hair. It was quiet, and Troye's temporary non-verbal situation didn't matter because Jacob wasn't using words or talking either.

And it was great. They didn't need words.


End file.
